Just a little bit of what makes me happy

This past weekend I had the awesome opportunity to revisit a little bit of childhood at Keuka Lake – with a 21 and over perk.

Growing up in Western NY State we spent plenty of time camping and exploring.

One of our favorite destinations was Keuka Lake – one of the finger lakes. Our neighbors growing up, the type of people you love so much you affectionately call Aunt and Uncle, purchased land there and slowly built their retirement dream. As retired teachers, they now have an awesome lakeside dock as well as a beautiful house on the hill that they live in permanently.

Growing up we spent a lot of time there camping on the then vacant property. Then indoor camping as the house was framed and then slowly finished. We would spend our time snorkeling, boating, skiing, and bobbing up and down on our floats hoping a boat would soon go by to give us some waves!

This trip, however, was a tad different.

My parents, sister and Aunt all met our ‘neighbors’ on Thursday around lunchtime. We quickly caught up, had a quick lunch and ventured out. We knew our theme of this trip was wine tasting but more importantly it was reconnecting and taking in beautiful Keuka Lake. The girls headed out separate from the boys (actually we didn’t see the boys again until dinnertime). We took in a few wineries, pottery and antique shops. All in all I think we drove about half way around the lake. Each stop was beautiful in it’s own way and Keuka wineries have some views! Back in time for some dockside wine and cheese and then we headed up to the house for dinner.

The next day was pretty similar. We were up early, had a hearty breakfast and headed out to a few more wineries. One being one our ‘Aunt’ works at – talk about the hookup! We were back at the house for lunch and quickly out on the boat for a long cruise on this perfectly sunny day! Back at the house to freshen up for dinner and then headed to The Lakeside – which was fantastic! There are so many options for outside, lakeside seating and it was the perfect night for it. I do recommend reservations though. I had a great beer, Local Mocha Stout from Keuka Brewing Co., paired with Louie’s BLT (no B 🙂 ). The next morning we all headed out after breakfast.

This was a great little trip with some of my favorite people! I need to remember this is the reason we moved back north, to be closer to family and do things like this. Darn you winter! 🙂